Why weren't we given an immortal soul?" the little mermaid sadly asked. "I would gladly give up my three hundred years if I could be a human being only for a day, and later share in that heavenly realm."
"You must not think about that," said the old lady. "We fare much more happily and are much better off than the folk up there."
"Then I must also die and float as foam upon the sea, not hearing the music of the waves, and seeing neither the beautiful flowers nor the red sun! Can't I do anything at all to win an immortal soul?"
"No," her grandmother answered, "not unless a human being loved you so much that you meant more to him than his father and mother.

Unlike the happily resolved Disney version, the real Little Mermaid story written by Hans Christian Andersen
has a more tragic end to the Little Mermaid showing her self sacrifice to save the prince, the love of her life and becoming sea foam but gains an immortal soul into heaven
Read Hans Christian Andersen's entire story of the Little Mermaid
here8'5x11 Print -14.95